The poem describes a narrator who hears a bird singing by his house all day, which frustrates him to the point that he claps his hands at the bird from his door to try to make it stop. However, the narrator realizes that the fault lies with him for wanting to silence the bird's song, as every creature has a right to expression, and there is something wrong with trying to stop any song.

1. Robert Frost
Poems & Analysis
Aytekin Eliyeva

2. THE LOCKLESS DOOR
 It went many years,
 But at last came a knock,
 And I thought of the door
 With no lock to lock.
 I blew out the light,
 I tip-toed the floor,
 And raised both hands
 In prayer to the door.

3. THE LOCKLESS DOOR
 But the knock came again  So at a knock
 My window was wide;  I emptied my cage
 I climbed on the sill  To hide in the world
 And descended outside.  And alter with age.
 Back over the sill
 I bade a “Come in”
 To whatever the knock
 At the door may have been.

4. Summary
The narrator is alone in a house with a lockless door
when he hears an unexpected knock. He immediately
blows out his candle in terror and tiptoes to the door,
silently praying that no one will come in. Upon
hearing another knock on the door, the narrator
quickly jumps out the window to safety and shouts
“Come in!” to whatever (or whoever) was knocking.

5. Analysis
 The poem is based on an autobiographical event that occurred
early in Frost’s career. Throughout his childhood, Frost was
extremely afraid of the dark, to the point where he slept on a
bed in his mother’s room through his high school years. In 1895,
Frost was staying alone in a cottage on Ossipee Mountain when
he heard a knock on the old, lockless door. Frost was too
terrified to answer the door but jumped through a window in the
back and then called “Come in!” from the outside. The next
morning, Frost returned to the cottage and found one of his
neighbors in a drunken slumber on the floor.

6. 
Analysiscreates a more ominous force
In the poem, Frost takes the comic event and
outside the lockless door. He uses the term “whatever” instead of “whoever”
in order to express the knock’s unknown and potentially threatening origin,
as well as the abstract nature of the narrator’s own fear.
 In the final stanza, Frost gently mocks the terrified narrator (and himself) by
pointing out that a simple knock is enough to make the narrator completely
leave his home for the “safety” of the New England winter. Frost also
suggests that the narrator is losing an opportunity to save himself from
isolation: this is the first knock on the door for “many years” and possibly the
first chance that the narrator has had to meet another person for an equally
long amount of time. Rather than communicating with another person in his
“cage,” however, the narrator chooses to abandon it completely.

7. Analysis
 Significantly, the narrator still invites the person outside to
“come in,” but only after he has established a detached
position outside the house. He is willing to offer hospitality,
but cannot bring himself to offer the hospitality on a
personal level: even if the person does enter the house, the
narrator will not be there to welcome him. Yet, in his effort
to escape the person at his door, the narrator inadvertently
escapes his own enforced isolation. Since he cannot reenter
his house (not knowing who is in there), the narrator is
suddenly forced to interact with the rest of the world and
finally “alter with age,” adapting to others than only
himself.

8. Fire and Ice
 Some say the world will end in fire,
 Some say in ice.
 From what I've tasted of desire
 I hold with those who favour fire.
 But if it had to perish twice,
 I think I know enough of hate
 To say that for destruction ice
 Is also great
 And would suffice.

9. Summary
 This short poem outlines the familiar question about the
fate of the world, wondering if it is more likely to be
destroyed by fire or ice. People are on both sides of the
debate, and Frost introduces the narrator to provide his
personal take on the question of the end of the world. The
narrator first concludes that the world must end in fire after
considering his personal experience with desire and passion,
the emotions of fire. Yet, after considering his experience
with “ice,” or hatred, the narrator acknowledges that ice
would be equally destructive.

10. Analysis
 In the first two lines of the poem, Frost creates a clear dichotomy
between fire and ice and the two groups of people that believe in each
element. By using the term “some” instead of “I” or “an individual,”
Frost asserts that the distinction between the two elements is a
universal truth, not just an idea promoted by an individual. First
lines also outline the claim that the world will end as a direct result of
one of these elements. It is unclear which element will destroy the
world, but it is significant to note that fire and ice are the only
options. The poem does not allow for any other possibilities in terms
of the world’s fate, just as there are not any other opinions allowed in
the black-and-white debate between fire and ice.

11. Analysis
 Interestingly, the two possibilities for the world’s destruction
correspond directly to a common scientific debate during the
time Frost wrote the poem. Some scientists believed that the
world would be incinerated from its fiery core, while others were
convinced that a coming ice age would destroy all living things
on the earth’s surface. Instead of maintaining a strictly scientific
perspective on this debate, Frost introduces a more emotional
side, associating passionate desire with fire and hatred with ice.
Within this metaphorical view of the two elements, the “world”
can be recognized as a metaphor for a relationship. Too much fire
and passion can quickly consume a relationship, while cold
indifference and hate can be equally destructive.

12. Analysis
 Although the first two lines of the poem insist that there can
only be a single choice between fire and ice, the narrator
acknowledges that both elements could successfully destroy the
world. Moreover, the fact that he has had personal experience
with both (in the form of desire and hate) reveals that fire and ice
are not mutually exclusive, as the first two lines of the poem
insist. In fact, though the narrator first concludes that the world
will end in fire, he ultimately admits that the world could just as
easily end in ice; fire and ice, it seems, are strikingly similar.

13. A Minor Bird
 I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
 Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
 The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
 And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

14. Analysis
 Poem is about freedom of expression and
appreciation of the arts. There's this bird that's been
singing all day and it's getting on his nerves. He
eventually snaps and tries to put an end to the bird's
dreadful singing. It's only then that he realizes what
he's done. He's put himself before the bird's self-
expression and happiness. A bird (or any artist) may
not be good at what he does, but everyone has a right
to self-expression, and as caring human beings, we
should show a person appreciation at least for the
effort that he puts into his work.